The present invention relates to an apparatus for picking up a semiconductor chip adhered on a sheet cut from a wafer and a method for picking up the same.
A semiconductor chip has a tendency of being low-profiled with recent downsizing of electronic components, and a very low-profiled semiconductor device having a thickness of 100 μm or less has been put into practice. However, such a low-profiled semiconductor device is apt to be damaged and so difficult to handle. Particularly, it is very difficult to execute a process of taking out an individual semiconductor chip cut from a wafer. This process repeatedly implements the operation of picking up the semiconductor chip adhered on a sheet using an suction nozzle while being separated for each piece. In this case, if the method for separating a semiconductor chip, which has been conventionally used, is adopted for the low-profiled semiconductor chip (see Patent Publication JP-A-54-58356), i.e. pushing up the semiconductor chip by a needle from below the sheet is adopted, inconveniences such as fracture or chipping in the semiconductor chip may be generated frequently.
In the case where the above method is directed to the low-profiled chip, in many cases, the individual semiconductor chip remains warped/deformed in the state where the sheet has been sucked from below. Therefore, in imaging of the semiconductor chip for alignment during the pick-up, erroneous recognition due to the warping/deformation occurs very frequently. The erroneous recognition means that owing to a partial warp of the semiconductor chip, a conforming product is erroneously decided to be a defective product with chipping.